Dempsey, feeling rather indignantly that his pains had been wasted, and his audience was not worthy of him, rose to take his departure. Halsey's face cleared. He turned to look at his wife, and she winked in return.

And when the young forester had taken his departure, Mrs. Halsey stroked the red flannel round her swollen neck complacently.

"I 'ad to pike 'im out soomhow. It's 'igh time she wor put to bed!"

That same evening, Ellesborough left the Ralstone camp behind him about six o'clock, and hurried through the late October evening towards Great End Farm. During the forty-eight hours which had elapsed since his interview with Rachel he had pa.s.sed through much suffering, and agonies of indecision. He had had to reconstruct all his ideas of the woman he loved. Instead of the proud and virginal creature he had imagined himself to be wooing, amid the beautiful setting of her harvest fields, he had to think of her as a woman dimmed and besmirched by an unhappy marriage with a bad man. For himself, he certainly resented the concealment which had been practised on him. Yet at the same time he thought he understood the state of exasperation, of invincible revolt which had led to it. And he kept reminding himself that, after all, her confession had antic.i.p.ated his proposal.

Nevertheless such men as he have ideas of marriage, both romantic and austere. They are inclined to claim what they give--a clean sheet, and the first-fruits of body and soul. In Rachel's case the first-fruits had been wasted on a marriage, of which the ugly and inevitable incidents haunted Ellesborough's imagination. One moment he shrank from the thought of them; the next he could not restrain the protesting rush of pa.s.sion--the vow that his love should put her back on that pinnacle of honour and respect from which fate should never have allowed her to fall.

Well, she had promised to tell him her story in full. He awaited it.

As to his own people, they were dear, good women, his mother and sisters--saints, but not Pharisees.

It was a dark and lowering evening, with tempest gusts of wind. But from far away, after he had pa.s.sed Ips...o...b.., a light from one of the windows of the farm shone out, as though beckoning him to her. Suddenly from the mouth of the farm, he saw a bicycle approaching. The rider was Janet Leighton. She pa.s.sed him with a wave and a smile.

"Going to a Food meeting! But Rachel's at home."

What a nice woman! Looking back over the couple of months since he had known the inmates of the farm, he realized how much he had come to like Janet Leighton. So unselfish, so full of thought for others, so modest for herself! There couldn't be a better friend for Rachel; her friendship itself was a testimonial; he rea.s.sured himself by the mere thought of her.

When he drew up at the farm, Hastings with a lantern in his hand was just disappearing towards the hill, and the two girls, Betty and Jenny, pa.s.sed him, each with a young man, two members, in fact, of his own Corps, John Dempsey and another. They explained that they were off to a Red Cross Concert in the village hall. Ellesborough's pulse beat quicker as he parted from them, for he realized that he would find Rachel alone in the farm.

Yes, there she was at the open door, greeting him with a quiet face--a smile even. She led the way into the sitting-room, where she had just drawn down the blinds and closed the curtains of the window looking on the farm-yard. But his arrival had interrupted her before she could do the same for the window looking on the Down. Neither of them thought of it. Each was absorbed in the mere presence of the other.

Rachel was in her black Sunday dress of some silky stuff. Her throat was uncovered, and her shapely arms showed through the thin sleeves. The black and white softened and refined something overblown and sensuous in her beauty. Her manner, too, had lost its confident, provocative note.

Ellesborough had never seen her so adorable, so desirable. But her self-command dictated his. He took the seat to which she pointed him; while she herself brought a chair to the other side of the fire, putting on another log with a steady hand, and a remark about the wind that was whistling outside. Then, one foot crossed over the other, her cheek reddened by the fire, propped on her hand, and her eyes on the fresh flame that was beginning to dance out of the wood, she asked him,--"You'd like to hear it all?"

He made a sign of a.s.sent.

So in a quiet, even voice, she began with an account of her family and early surroundings, more detailed than anything she had yet given him.

She described her father (the striking apostolic head of the old man hung on the wall behind her) and his missionary journeys through the prairie settlements in the early days of Alberta; how, when he was old and weary, he would sometimes take her, his latest child, a small girl of ten or twelve, on his pastoral rounds, for company, perched up beside him in his buggy; and how her mother was killed by the mere hardships of the prairie life, sinking into fretful invalidism for two years before her death.

"I nursed her for years. I never did anything else--I couldn't. I never had any amus.e.m.e.nts like other girls. There was no money and no time. She died when I was twenty-four. And three months after, my father died. He didn't leave a penny. Then my brother asked me to go and live with him and his wife. I was to have my board and a dress allowance, if I would help her in the house. My brother's an awfully good sort--but I couldn't get on with his wife. I just couldn't! I expect it was my fault, just as much as hers. It was something we couldn't help. Very soon I hated the sight of her, and she never missed a chance of making me feel a worm--a useless, greedy creature, living on other people's work. If only there had been some children, I dare say I could have borne it. But she and I could never get away from each other. There were no distractions. Our nerves got simply raw--at least mine did."

There was a pause. She lifted her brown eyes, and looked at Ellesborough intently.

"I suppose my mother would have borne it. But girls nowadays can't. Not girls like me, anyway. Mother was a Christian. I don't suppose I am. I don't know what I am. I just _had_ to live my own life. I couldn't exist without a bit of pleasure--and being admired--and seeing men--and all that!"

Her cheeks had flushed. Her eyes were very bright and defiant.

Ellesborough came nearer to her, put out a strong hand and enclosed hers in it.

"Well then--this man Delane--came to live near you?"

He spoke with the utmost gentleness, trying to help her out.

She nodded, drawing her hand away.

"I met him at a dance in Winnipeg first--the day after I'd had a horrid row with my sister-in-law. He'd just taken a large farm, with a decent house on it--not a shack--and everybody said his people were rich and were backing him. And he was very good-looking--and a Cambridge man--and all that. We danced together almost all the evening. Then he found out where I lived, and used to be always coming to see me. My brother never liked him. He said to me often, 'Why do you encourage that unprincipled cad? I'm certain there's a screw loose about him!' And I wasn't in love with Roger--not really--for one moment. But I _think_ he was in love with me--yes, I'm sure he was--at first. And he excited and interested me. I was proud, too, of taking him away from other girls, who were always running after him. And my sister-in-law was just mad to get rid of me!

Don't you understand?"

"Of course I do!"

Her eyelids wavered a little under the emotion of his tone.

"Well, then, we got married. My brother tried to get out of him what his money-affairs were. But he always evaded everything. He talked a great deal about this rich sister, and she did send him a wedding present. But he never showed me her letter, and that was the last we ever heard of her while I knew him...."

Her voice dropped. She sat looking at the fire--a grey, pale woman, from whom light and youth had momentarily gone out.

"Well, it's a hateful story--and as common!--as common as dirt. We began to quarrel almost immediately. He was jealous and tyrannical, and I always had a quick temper. I found that he drank, that he told me all sorts of lies about his past life, that he presently only cared about me as--well, as his mistress!"--and again she faced Ellesborough with hard, insistent eyes--"that he was hopelessly in debt--a gambler--and everything else. When the baby came, I could only get the wife of a neighbouring settler to come and look after me. And Roger behaved so abominably to her that she went home when the baby was a week old--and I was left to manage for myself. Then when baby was three months old, she caught whooping-cough, and had bronchitis on the top. I had a few pounds of my own, and I gave them to Roger to go in to Winnipeg and bring out a doctor and medicines. He drank all the money on the way--that I found out afterwards--he was a week away instead of two days--and the baby died.

When he came back he told me a lie about having been ill. But I never lived with him--as a wife--after that. Then, of course, he hated me, and one night he nearly killed me. Next morning he apologized--said that he loved me pa.s.sionately--and that kind of stuff--that I was cruel to him--and what could he do to make up? So then I suggested that he should go away for a month--and we should both think things over. He was rather frightened, because--well--he'd knocked me about a good deal in the horrible scene between us--and he thought I should bring my brother down on him. So he agreed to go, and I said I would have a girl friend to stay with me. But, of course, as soon as he was gone, I just left the house and departed. I had got evidence enough by then to set me free--about the Italian girl. I met my brother in Winnipeg. We went to his lawyers together, and I began proceedings--"

She stopped abruptly. "The rest I told you.--_No!_--I've told you the horrible things--now I'll say something of the things which--have made life worth living again. Till the divorce was settled I went back to my brother in Toronto. I dropped my married name then and called myself Henderson. And then I came home--because my mother's brother, who was a manufacturer in Bradford, wrote to ask me. But when I arrived he was dead, and he had left me three thousand pounds. Then I went to Swanley and got trained for farm-work. And I found Janet Leighton, and we made friends. And I love farm-work--and I love Janet--and the whole world looks so different to me! Why, of course, I didn't want to be reminded of that old horrible life! I didn't want people to say, 'Mrs. Delane? Who and where is her husband? Is he dead?' 'No--she's divorced.' 'Why?'

There's!--don't you see?--all the old vile business over again! So I cut it all!"

She paused--resuming in another voice--hesitating and uncertain,--

"And yet--it seems--you can't do a simple thing like that without--hurting somebody--injuring somebody. I can't help it! I didn't mean to deceive _you_. But I had a right to get free from the old life if I could!"

She threw back her head proudly. Her eyes were full of tears. Then she rose impetuously.

"There!--I've told you. I suppose you don't want to be friends with me any more. It was rotten of me, I know, for, of course--I saw--you seemed to be getting to care for me. I told Janet when we set up work together that I wasn't a bad woman. And I'm not. But I'm weak. You'd better not trust me. And besides--I fell into the mud--and I expect it sticks to me still!"

She spoke with pa.s.sionate animation--almost fierceness. While through her inner mind there ran the thought, "I've told him!--I've told him! If he doesn't understand, it's not my fault. I can always say, 'I _did_ tell you--about Roger--_and the rest_!--as much as I was bound to tell you.'

Why should I make him miserable--and destroy my own chances with him for _nothing_?"

They stood fronting each other. Over the fine bronzed face of the forester there ran a ripple of profound emotion--nostril and lip--and eye. Then she found herself in his arms--with no power to resist or free herself. Two or three deep, involuntary sobs--sobs of excitement--shook her, as she felt his kisses on her cheek.

"Darling!--I'll try and make up to you--for all you've suffered. Poor child!--poor little Rachel!"

She clung to him, a great wave of pa.s.sion sweeping through her also. She thought, "Now I shall be happy!--and I shall make him happy, too. Of course I shall!--I'm doing quite right."

Presently he put her back in her chair, and sat beside her on the low fender stool, in front of the fire. His aspect was completely transformed. The triumphant joy which filled him had swept away the slightly stiff and reserved manner which was on the whole natural to him.

And it had swept away at the same time all the doubts and hesitations of his inner mind. She had told her story, it seemed to him, with complete frankness, and a humility which appealed to all that was chivalrous and generous in a strong man. He was ready now to make more excuses for her, in the matter of his own misleading, than she seemed to wish to make for herself. How natural that she should act as she had acted! The thought of her suffering, of her ill-treatment was intolerable to him--and of the brute who had inflicted it.

"Do you know where that man is now?" he said to her presently. She had fallen back in her chair--pale and shaken, but dressed, for his eyes, in a loveliness, a pathos, that was every moment strengthening her hold upon him.

"Roger? No, I have no idea. I always suppose he's in Canada still. He never appeared when the case was tried. But the summons had to be served on him, and my lawyers succeeded in tracking him to a lodging in Calgary, where he was living--with the Italian girl. But after that we never heard any more of him--except that I had a little pencil note--unsigned, undated, delivered by hand--just before the trial came on. It said I should repent casting him off--that I had treated him shamefully--that I was a vile woman--and though I had got the better of him for the time, he would have his revenge before long."

Ellesborough shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Threats are cheap! I hope you soon put that out of your mind?"

She made a little restless movement.

"Yes, I--I suppose so. But I did tell you once, didn't I, that--I often had fears--about nothing?"

"Yes, you did tell me," he said, smiling. "Don't have any more fears, darling! I'll see to that."

He took her hands again, and raised them to his lips and kissed them. It astonished him to feel them so cold, and see her again so excited and pale. Was she really afraid of the villain she had escaped from? The dear, foolish woman! The man in his self-confident strength loved her the more for the vague terrors he felt himself so well able to soothe.